The Middle Boy and I set to work a few weeks back to make rainbow crayons to go in the treat bags for the Twinadoe’s party.

Muski helped me take the papers off all the crayons and we sorted them into rainbow colours. Then we laid a crayon of each colour in the correct order into the moulds. We used a silicone baking mould, but they use a regular metal muffin tin to make these pretty crayons at Not Without Salt.. We put the silicone mould onto an oven tray to give it a bit of support then popped them in a low oven for about 30 minutes, or until all the crayons had melted.

After they cool it is easy to pop out your new crayons.

We used a variety of different branded and quality crayons and we did have the problem where the wax separated from the pigment a little in some cases, leaving a clear layer on the back of the crayons. We ended up gently scraping or rubbing the clear layer off, but it really is better to use good quality crayons. It also might have worked better if we’d used the method described here and melted each colour separately. Perhaps we could have scooped the clear layer of wax off the top before spooning a layer of each colour into the moulds.

But that seems much more tricky and not so easy for small people to help with and I think our crayons turned out pretty well in the end!

We play. Do you play? Head on over to Childhood101.com to find out what everyone else is playing.

I saw Karen Pang do this on Playschool a while ago (she made star-shaped crayons). She did hers in the microwave, but didn’t really give much detail -went straight from putting old crayon pieces in the tin to “here’s one we prepared earlier”. Now I don’t have to research it myself – thanks!